


Three Weeks

by CrownPrincessMoon



Series: Tales from Yorktown Academy [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Aaron Burr is So Done, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Attempt at Humor, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Human Disaster Alexander Hamilton, Light Angst, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25294744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrownPrincessMoon/pseuds/CrownPrincessMoon
Summary: All things considered, it's certainly the cleanest prison cell Alexander's ever landed himself into.
Relationships: Aaron Burr & Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton/Maria Reynolds
Series: Tales from Yorktown Academy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832458
Kudos: 38





	Three Weeks

**Author's Note:**

> I'm once again obsessed with Hamilton and have a new series to show for it set in a boarding school-like environment.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!!

All things considered, it's certainly the _cleanest_ prison cell Alexander's ever landed himself into.

(And the fact that Aaron has a _reference point_ for that, has been in enough police stations to tell the difference speaks _volumes_ to the Before Alex and After Alex periods of his life.)

Alex still hasn't seen him yet, caught in what appears to be a discussion with some of the other occupants of his holding cell. From the way his hands gesticulate wildly and his face contorts expressively, he's telling the story of how he (no doubt unfairly from his point of view) ended up in such a predicament.

Or maybe he's talking about what he had for breakfast that morning.

It's hard to tell with him sometimes.

Aaron clears his throat for the second time in five minutes because for some _godforsaken_ reason Alex barely spared him a glance the first time he did it, even though he clearly doesn't look like he belongs there, doesn't mesh well with the painted over brick walls and metal folding chairs over linoleum floors with his wrinkle-free suit, pressed silk tie, and the long wool coat he wears over it all.

Oddly enough, neither does Alex.

Even though the officer at the front desk told Aaron that he was picked up for public intoxication and disorderly conduct, he looks as put together as he always does, the only signs suggesting that anything even remotely interesting happened tonight being the loose strands pulled from his dark ponytail and the slightly wrinkled t-shirt underneath the worn brown leather jacket and dark green scarf he wore around his neck.

There's also the matter of the shiner he's starting to sport underneath his right eye, but Aaron isn't ready to stop being annoyed at the moment to address that concern.

It takes Alex a quick double-take to recognize him leaning against the cool wall, arms tucked into his pockets while he waits for the officer in charge to finish completing the release paperwork.

"Aaron Burr, sir!" Alex's grin is wild as he bounds up to the bars, wrapping his hands around the two in front of him, the conversation behind him already forgotten. The childish nickname makes him grimace, but at the very least he knows Alex is well enough to use it. "You came."

"Yes, well. You called." He shrugs. "I couldn't exactly leave you here. You have my chemistry notes and there's a test tomorrow."

Alex's smile grows impossibly wider. "You see, that's why you're my best friend."

"I never agreed to that." Burr deadpans and Alex only winks at him lazily.

"Here we are, sir." The officer arrives with a pair of keys she uses to unlock the holding cell. "Stop by collection to pick up your stuff and you're good to go."

"Thank you again," Burr says, all but pulling Hamilton out by his leather collar.

"Yes, thank you," Alex says, a predatory glint slipping into his eyes as his lips slide into a familiar smirk. "What was your name again?"

The officer--Officer Collins, her name badge reads--looks painfully unmoved by this, although several others in the room all but sigh from the peripheral brush with Alex's charm.

"Alexander."

An annoyed huff and then a gracious bow because Alex is ridiculously extra like that. "I know when I am not wanted. Catch you guys later. I bid you adieu, Officer Collins."

There are varying degrees of farewell, from the cell occupants' boisterous goodbyes to the officer's silent eye roll, and Aaron finds himself wondering how Alex veers so sharply between charming the pants off of people to annoying them to the point of tears—like most things in his life, there seems to be no middle ground.

"Let's go." He sighs.

Alex grabs his stuff from collection, winking at the young man behind the mesh gate and Aaron pushes him towards the glass doors before he can start that all up again.

Once outside Aaron stops and gives him a cursory look over. Angry, tired, and annoyed or not, he _does_ care about Alex's wellbeing underneath all his dry remarks and perpetual eye rolls.

More than Alex seems to these days, anyway.

The bruise underneath his eye isn't as bad as it seemed under the station lights, but it still makes him frown. Alex notices this and waves him off when he tries to look closer.

"It's nothing."

"That is certainly _not_ nothing."

Alex ignores him. "It's freezing out here. Can we go now?"

Burr pulls his wool jacket closer around his body as he digs his car keys out of his pockets. Alex not-too-subtly shivers beneath the too-thin scarf he wears and Aaron wishes he would just get some normal fall clothing for once.

" _Stupid bipolar New York weather, it's supposed to be fucking summer still–_ "

He clambers in and waits until they're on the road to broach the subject of tonight. Alex has already settled in, having turned up the A/C to the appropriate temperature and fiddled with the radio until Burr slapped his hand away and put on some oldies hip hop.

"So." He says at the first red light.

"So?" Alex is on his phone, texting or tweeting or playing Angry Birds. He loves that game for some reason. His right leg is pumping up-and-down, up-and-down, and Burr resists the urge to still it.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"I wasn't planning on it, actually. Building suspense and all that."

"You were arrested." Aaron continues because he's gotten used to Alexander's bullshit, like building up a tolerance to disease.

"Was I?" Aaron side-eyes him to make sure he's not actually being serious—with Alex it's always hard to tell when he's genuinely forgotten something or when he's pretending to get away with something.

"Alexander."

"Aaron Burr, sir."

It's a game they play. And by "game," he means that Aaron is steadily getting more and more convinced that Alex is attempting to drive him insane with the inane rhyme he made-up when they first met all those years ago at the academy.

Usually, it's enough to make him back off.

 _Usually_.

Instead, something in his head snaps, _hard_. He grabs Alex's phone and tosses it to the back seat before executing a flawless right turn before the light can change again.

" _Hey!_ " Alex splutters twisting around and nearly strangling himself with his seatbelt.

"Talk." He orders.

"What happened to ' _talk less_ '?" Alex sneers in a poor imitation of his voice.

"Alexander."

"You should be nicer to me," Alex grumbles under his breath as his slouches in the passenger chair, twiddling his thumbs, _literally_. Aaron didn't think people actually did that. Figures Alex does. "Someone punched me tonight. Really hard."

"If you wanted nice, you shouldn't have wasted your one phone call on me," Aaron says, and it's true. He's never been the touchy-feely type and Alex knows this. Maybe more than anyone considering how long they've known each other.

"I didn't exactly have anyone else." Alex snaps. He's pulled a pen from one of the storage slots in front of them, tapping out an erratic beat on the dashboard. He looks uncharacteristically nervous.

"Why were you punched?" Aaron asks because it seems like the question most likely to get an answer right now. Not, _why did you leave?_ Or, _were you planning to come back?_ Or _even worse, why didn't you tell me?_

"Why does anyone get punched?" Alex asks. A rhetorical question, of course. "I was attempting to enlighten him on the nuisances of human existence and their many complexities and, like the under evolved neanderthal he was, he attacked me."

Burr reads between the lines easily enough. You have to to understand Alexander. "He was being a homophobic idiot and you decided to cuss him out?"

"Drop the niceties, Burr." Alex scoffs and crosses his arms. "No, he was being a _sexist_ homophobic _dipshit_ and I decided to educate him. Loudly."

Aaron snorts.

"You know, it kind of made me miss Lee," Alex says almost wistfully.

"Charles Lee?" He repeats incredulously. "Your tenth-year roommate Lee? You made him request a roommate change. He despised you."

"Well, I _loathed_ him." Alex shoots back like it's a competition.

"You've hated all your roommates." Aaron rolls his eyes.

"Not all of them." Alex looks out the window. The comment is absent-minded, no real thought behind the words, and Aaron feels something in him thaw a little before he reminds himself that, _no_ , he's mad right now. And tired. And very, _very_ annoyed.

"What if you'd gotten caught?" He asks, lending a voice to the worry eating at his thoughts. "If you had been seen by a monitor..."

"I _didn't_." The pen's uncapped, Alex writing something on his palm with a slight frown. A piece of rhetoric he didn't want to forget if Aaron had to guess. "I _wasn't_."

"But if you _did_." Aaron looks away from him and back on to the road to rein in his emotions. "If you _were_."

"Well, I imagine we wouldn't be having this conversation right now." Alex is starting to sound irritated now, too. Good.

Aaron tightens his hands around the steering wheel. "You're being intransigent."

"Big word, Burr," Alex whistles. "You've been hitting a dictionary, lately?"

"You're being difficult. More so than usual." He continues.

"I'm being the _exact_ amount of difficult I've always been," Alex ensuing smile is sharp around the corners, brittle. "Although, I'm sorry that my ending up in jail has been such an inconvenience for you, Mr. Burr. What was it I interrupted tonight? Late-night tutoring session with Theodosia again?"

A low-blow.

A _drunken_ , low-blow Aaron reminds himself before taking a deep breath, another, and then, " _Look_. I know the break-up was hard–"

"– _Don't_." Alex's voice is steel, his sudden sobriety jarring. Aaron wonders if he was ever as drunk as he seemed. "Don't, Aaron. Not this."

" _Fine_." He snaps. "I know last year was hard. But doing stuff like this? You could lose your scholarship. Not even Senator Washington can save you if you can't walk in a straight line or pass a freaking _sobriety_ test! Let's not forget the fact that you're on new _meds_ , Alexander–!"

It's the closest Aaron's ever come to cursing, a testament to how strung out he is.

"Why do you care?" Alex suddenly snaps. His fingers are curled into tight fists and it almost looks like he's shaking.

"Alex, please–"

"No, why do you _fucking_ care?" He scowls down at his lap. "You've made it more than clear before what you think about me. I haven't forgotten that."

("You bastard, orphan, whoreson–!")

"Because..."

Because Aaron's a senior and Alex is still a junior and in a year or so he'll be in Princeton, too far to keep Alex out of his head or a ditch.

("This is your fault!")

Because Aaron's late parents had enough influence and left him enough money to live comfortably until he was at least fifty whereas Alex came to America with little more than the clothes on his back and whatever he could stuff into a carry-on suitcase he still keeps in his closet until this day.

("Just stop talking!")

Because Alex's always been foolish and dangerously reckless—act first, and think never unless it's to explain how there was no time to think, stop _waiting_ , Burr, _goddamnit_ —but now he's self-destructive, picking fights he can't hope to win, piling assignments he can't hope to complete.

("Your pride will be the death of you!")

Because after the Eliza-Maria-and-James situation, something's changed in Alex, something _broke_ , and Aaron for the life of him doesn't know how to fix it.

("I could kill you.")

Because a year ago Aaron made a mistake that may have cost him his best friend.

("You care only about yourself, Burr. I won't apologize because it's true.")

Maybe it already had.

"Because if you get in trouble with King, you're not dragging me down with you." He settles on because it's easier. When Alex's shoulders relax, he's not sure for who.

"Why are you pulling over?" He asks.

"To dump your body in a ditch." Aaron drawls and Alex rolls his eyes. He hands him a water bottle. "Here, drink this and wash your face. We're breaking curfew and I can't make up an excuse if you smell like a dive bar. Whose party were you even at?"

"Some kid from P.S. 17, I think. Maybe 27?" Alex frowns, eyes distant for a moment.

Aaron nudges him, snaps his focus back on to him. "How'd you get in?"

Alex levels him a dry look.

"Forget I asked."

A beat of silence while Alex does as he says and dries his face with the cloth square from Aaron's suit.

"I'm sorry."

Aaron starts and Alex looks away, tightening his ponytail and revealing smeared ink alongside his wrist. "I am. Really. I didn't mean... I know you care. About me. In your own way." Alex's words are stilted and awkward, a far cry from his usual eloquence, and his lips purse in frustration. "I shouldn't have brought up Theo."

"No, you shouldn't have. But I should've been more understanding." Burr shakes his head and rubs his face. "I'm sorry. It's been a long night."

Alex sighs. "Tell me about it."

He looks so very tired at this moment. More tired than any 17-year-old has the right to look. Not for the first time, Aaron wonders what Alex's life was like before he met him.

("Why do you write like you're running out of time?")

"Three weeks." Burr reminds him, although he doubts Alex even knows what day of the week it is, let alone how many days until their school reopens and the students come back.

Predictably, he frowns, his attention already lapsing as his internal clock briefly realigns with the rest of the world's, and his eyes start to droop with sleep. "Until what?"

Until Burr's last year at Yorktown Academy. Until Alex is left alone with no one and either pulls into himself deep enough to be lost or self-destructs.

Three weeks until school starts and maybe something can change before he's gone.

Burr shakes his head and starts the car. "Nothing. Let's go home."

Three weeks is a long time to wait for a miracle.

Thankfully, Burr's willing to wait for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it!!! Leave comments and kudos if you liked!!❤️❤️❤️


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